Hawaii Hang 20 for Brammo?

I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I imagine it’s a perfect place for an EV like the Brammo Enertia. It’s pretty small. The weather’s great. And they have some great roads for riding on. It’s also the next stop on the SIWIBABE list (States in which I’d buy a Brammo Enertia).

This month, Hawaii is scheduled to begin providing “rebates for Hawaii residents, businesses, State and County agencies, and nonprofit entities for the initial purchase of new, commercially available electric vehicles for use in Hawaii and for the purchase and installation of commercially available charging equipment in Hawaii.” See this page.

Oops. Almost forgot the standard Brammofan Tax Advisor Disclaimer:

Disclaimer: Don’t get your tax or other financial advice from anyone whose online name ends in -fan. This means: do your own homework on this purchase. I’m just trying to get you to think.

The amount of the tax rebate (hey! it’s a rebate, not a credit, so you’re getting a check, Dan-o) is “up to 20% of the vehicle purchase price, up to a maximum of $4500 per vehicle.” I’m not sure why they put that first “up to” there… I see no other limiting information, but the official applications may include some fine print to mull over.

Let’s go to the numbers:

$7995 – retail price of the Brammo Enertia

-799 – Federal Tax Credit

-1599 – Hawaii Tax Rebate

——–

$5597

Not too shabby, Big Kahuna. On the SIWIBABE list, that puts the Aloha State in between Illinois and Georgia:

Of course, there’s also the problem of getting a Brammo Enertia to the Big Island. I am somewhat doubtful that Brammo’s $500 delivery fee for residents of states other than California and Oregon would apply, but it you’re one of the thousands of readers of Brammofan in Hawaii, and you’re ready to give it a shot, put down that pina colada and get busy: http://www.brammo.com. Or, if you want to wait for the Empulse, at least get your preorder in. The Empulse 10.0 would be:

13995

-1399 Fed cred

-2799 Hawaii rebate

—-

$9797

This information should be showing up soon over on empulsebuyer.com, as well, complete with his Total Cost of Ownership calculator.

Thanks for keeping up on things Brammofan! I’m on Kauai and have been interested in the Enertia for a while. I talked to a local motorcycle dealer about carrying it but he wasn’t too keen. He claimed that people wouldn’t be interested because although we have outrageously high gas prices ($3.55/gal near my house), we also have outrageously high electricity cost ($0.34/kWh). I still want one though. Maybe a solar charging solution… hmmm…🙂

There are two Best Buy stores in Hawaii – Honolulu and Aiea. Maybe “ship to store” would work? Give ’em a call and see if it works.
As for electricity costs, .34 is about three times what I pay, so my daily commute of about 22 miles would cost you about .75 in electricity versus the .25 it costs me.